Green groups push Obama on Arctic drilling

More than a dozen conservation and environmental groups are pushing President Obama to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.

The groups took out an advertisement in USA Today on Tuesday saying drilling in the Arctic is "not worth the risk" of negatively affecting the climate or creating an oil spill in the ocean.

The ad comes as Shell looks to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska.

ADVERTISEMENT

Environmental groups asked the Securities and Exchange Commission this week to investigate whether Shell has done enough to explain the risks associated with drilling there.

Earlier this year, the Interior Department announced a plan to allow drilling in three areas off the coast of Alaska while banning it elsewhere. Republicans have said the plan is too restrictive and called for expanded drilling.

In a blog post, National Resources Defense Council's Beyond Oil director Franz Matzner wrote that drilling in the Arctic would "essentially assume a total failure to address climate change" and be "a reversal of today's clean energy economy." The NRDC was among the groups on the USA Today ad.

"This is a fundamentally dangerous course to set that would require ignoring or contradicting ... stated U.S. energy policy, our international climate commitments, and the promise of the clean energy economy and if embraced would rock our planet to its core by catastrophic, avoidable climate disruption," Matzner wrote.